November's gone

All these months that end in 'ember' make me incredibly happy. Ember is such an amazing word, too, isn't it? The remnant of a dying fire. Which I guess symbolize the dying of the hotter months. I wonder if it's linked to that idea in any way? The day people made up names. Maybe that's what they thought about.

Anyhow. November's good as gone. And it's flown by so suddenly, so quietly, not leaving me time to concentrate on what it means to be almost done with the year. So scary. To keep my mind off of scary things, which is what we all need to do, always, I decided to share my favorite November things. I was planning on starting a "Weekly Favorites" kind of deal, but then December crept up and my weekly favorites are really my November ones (why? Because this month felt like a week, THAT'S WHY). So I thought I'd share it with you, lovely reader.

I'm of the opinion that people's favorite things make them who they are, and if those things change all the time, well, they're just that more interesting. And knowing little details of what people like always makes me happy. I hope it makes you happy, too.

FIRST: let's start with things I can't photograph. Music and Film. This month has, yet again, been dedicated to being absorbed by the magic of Bon Iver. So I leave you my favorites.

Two films I saw on November which I LOVED were Looper and Argo. To be fair, I watched the latter yesterday, but it counts! It was November still!

Looper was an amazing time-travel film, but it's definitely not for everyone... Most people I heard when coming out of the theatre either really disliked it or didn't understand it. I understood it and I thought it was a really simple film, but really very well made. Argo I saw with my best friend Fabiola, and we both loved it. It has the typical American sensationalist feel to it, very dramatic, but also based on true events, which always makes me curious. It's also based in the Middle East, and if you know me at all that's something I'm very interested in. I recommend both to anyone! They're a good time; not going on my all time favorites, but definitely nice to watch.

Instagram: Here are my Instagram photos of the month!

1-Taking a walk with Marina and ending up in the end of the world/ 2-Cupcakes made by friend Ale!/ 3- My friend Ini is home for the weekend/ 4- My best friend's birthday dinner!/ 5- I fell and hurt my knee but it's pretty (also this pic is from my friend Dei)/ 6- My Romwe skirt♥/ 7-My favorite Tea/ 8- Watching Across the Universe with my lovely Sarah/ 9- Patterning will kill me/ 10- What we do in textile class./ 11- My friend Carlota's beautiful illustration/ 12- It's December!!!

Books: The last couple of weeks I read The Hunger Games trilogy, which I thoroughly enjoyed! The last book was kind of slow and definitely the worst of the three in terms of storyline (a bit disappointing), but the series as a whole was incredible! I'm glad I've finally read them, I've been wanting to for a while. 

I read an ebook, though, which makes everything better and more practical until you run out of battery on the train. 

I'll post my fashion favorites tomorrow, because I feel like, otherwise, this post will be unnecessarily long ;). I leave you with some visual inspiration, and I hope you had an AMAZING month, and that December will be just as wonderful (It will be, we have Christmas). 

Love you all! xx

'Pride and Prejudice'

Comme Des Garçons 

'Beginners' 

Toby Edward Rosenthal - Elaine

Cooper Gotch

Herbert James Draper

'The Dreamers'

Halloween Collaboration - Finally...

I'm pretty late in the game, talking about Halloween like it's just passed, but I completely fell out of the blogging loop, as per usual! Forgive me. But the collaboration I did with my lovely Marina (her blog is the best) is pretty awesome to not mention, even if it doesn't seem that relevant right now (Christmas is really around the corner, which is weird; we were just melting under the summer sun what seems like yesterday!).

Inspired by the (then) upcoming Halloween, Marina and I joined creative forces, her with her brilliant modelling anything I put on her (remember this video?), and my photography skills. Who knew I had such skills? Not me. It was so much fun, really, creating a character which ended up being nothing very specific... a bit Morticia Addams, Corpse Bride, Zombie Widow... It's anything you want it to be. My metal wire doll I made a few years ago was featured (as well as my bat stuffed animal, Nosferatu, but you can't really see it), completely randomly, but it could mean a million things, too! It could be a voodoo doll, a product of the character's imagination in her pain of loss... Anything.

I leave you a few pictures of the shoot, but you can see them all here!

I forgot to add! The Skeleton hands T-Shirt was made by my beautiful friend Sarah Crevillén. You can see her AMAZING illustrations on her blog!

Finally, I made a little video of this shoot. We had nearly no light whatsoever nearing to the end of the shoot, but I hope you like it! 

Tell me what you think, and thank you for reading! I hope you have a lovely day. xx

Autumn Inspiration: Jean-Paul Gaultier A/W 2005

Most of my lovely Spanish readers, or, more specifically, those of you who live in Madrid, are probably aware that there's an exhibit in the museum Fundación Mapfre, which showcases some of Jean-Paul Gaultier's best work. He is truly an icon; I don't know a lot of people (interested in fashion or not) that don't know of him. The exhibit is free to visit, so I recommend ANYONE to attend it! It's incredibly beautiful, the clothes are stunning and there's an atmosphere that you can breathe in the place. It's absolutely wonderful. It's a pity it really is quite a short exhibit, considering the vast amount of designs that could potentially be shown, as the designer has been working marvels for decades.

My favorite of the looks in the exhibit. The faces are really projectors casting the image on a blank mannequin face! They move, and speak - so wonderful. 

In relation to my visit to this exhibition and an overall admiration for this man, which was also incremented upon my first year of uni last year and learning of the cultural background which allowed JPG to shine in the first place, I've come across one of his collections, namely the Autumn/Winter collection of 2005. It was total randomness, to be perfectly honest, how I came across it, but I love it! I recognise a few pieces that were in the exhibit, like the furry hats with jewelry hanging off it, it really stuck with me because it gives such a wonderful Russian winter meets Byzantium feel. I actually found this collection utterly inspiring as a whole. Though some of the looks were seemingly a little dated (we're talking about 7 years ago!), there were pieces that were so gorgeous I felt I needed to make a post all about it, my autumn inspiration for this year! Here are a few of my favorite looks.

 

 

 

So gorgeous, right?! I decided to go onto Polyvore as well, as I was very, very inspired by this collection, to try to round up the things I loved most of it and try to find a more practical outcome to these wonderful looks!

See products here

I hope you liked it, I find this style endlessly exciting, like living in a faerie tale where the main character is Agna, princess of Siberia who is marrying a prince of a far away land who brings her emeralds and they want to live in a forest. Or something like that. Tell me what your favorite autumn style is, and if you like this style! Have a lovely day. xx

Birthday Comeback! ♥

I should get back on the blogging scene, it made me incredibly happy. Perhaps today is a good day to. It's my birthday! I hope everyone is having as lovely a day as I am and have had. I've been gone for a good 7 months from this blog, but I intend on coming back pretty strongly now- it just makes me feel productive and satisfied, I have no idea why I've been gone, other than pure, old, laziness... I'm known for it ;). I thought I'd share my favorite things I've been liking as of late, to kind of give you a look into what I've been up to (not much, believe me.)

Music: The 28th of October I'm going to the Bon Iver concert in Madrid, and, dare I say I'm dying to go? I'm so excited it should be illegal, and I'm going with one of my loveliest friends who coincidentally bought the ticket for me as my birthday present. Too wonderful. To prepare, I've been listening to them over and over and, hand in hand with the improving weather (colder, cloudier, rainier... definitely improving), it's the perfect soundtrack to my life lately. This is the song by them which I've been listening to the most. The rest are a few I've been loving, too!

And... anything sounds better with the sound of rain in the background... This is my favorite website ever: http://www.rainymood.com/

Instagram: This really just defines my life lately because I love to document my every activity with it (maybe I'm exaggerating a tiny bit), but I love it, it looks pretty, it's a way of keeping a diary (more or less,) and it's just fun to use, really. I'm @cristina_barba on it. ^_^

1- The most lovely light on my way to class/ 2- La Puerta del Sol/ 3- My uncle and my dad in their 20s, wonderfully stylish/ 4- New faerie lights for my room!/ 5- The statue of Velázquez on El Paseo del Prado, taking a walk in Madrid/ 6- The weather lately... perfection./ 7- My mum and I/ 8- The Jean-Paul Gaultier exhibit in Madrid/ 9- My lovely best friend and I/ 10- Going out for my birthday this weekend!/ 11- Quote of the week by Picasso/ 12- Birthday lunch at Tommy Mel's

Films: I made a collage and posted it on Tumblr which documented my favorite films watched or re-watched over the summer, and it hasn't really changed since then. I'm actually planning on watching these all over again because they have become some of my favorite films. 

The Dreamers isn't for everyone, to be perfectly honest, and it definitely helps if you know French (which I don't very well, mind you), but it's so beautifully made and it's such an unusual story... I adore it. I saw An Education pretty early on in the summer so I don't remember it as well, but it's also extremely beautiful and relatable (perhaps not in the literal sense of the plot). And Moonrise Kingdom and Brave have been the two best films I've seen in the cinema in a loooong while. I strongly recommend all of these to any of you who think you share interests with me, as they can be considered quite particular. 

Vlogs: I've been REALLY into Youtube lately, since my obsession with make up increased, so, if you like these sort of things, I want to share with you my favorite Youtube channels. (These aren't just make-up, by the way, they're all a bundle of wonderful awesomeness)

• Rachel Whitehurst
• Grav3yard Girl
• Clothes Encounters
• Coffey Chat
• Beauty Crush
• Lorena Rubiano, MY FAVORITE (or will be)! She's a lovely friend of mine who just started her own vlog channel! I am patiently awaiting more videos! 

And now a bunch of random favorite things and such :)

Perfect Autumn outfit

Buddha at Nygyen Taktsang monastery

I'm obsessed with Frida Kahlo lately.

The outfits... Especially the one on the left... Marvellous. 

Meadham Kirchoff Studio

Life philosophy

Hope you're all doing wonderfully and I hope this marks my return to blogging again, I missed it. I love you all. xx

New things!

Today I bought make-up! I love it. I have a headache so forgive me for my short lines. Although... maybe it bothers you I over-explain things all the time and write run-on sentences and such. Which I am doing... right now. Anywho, I bought the 'Naked' palette by Urban Decay (40€) which I've been dying to buy, and a brush from Sephora (13€) and then I went to H&M and got make-up there too, because I'm all for Tha Kualityy. Oh, it's a blush. It's a coral-y pink. I like it. Here are some pictures!

Apart from that, it has been a long week and I am tired as fuck because I had an exam today and eegh. I just want to sleep for more than 4 hours today so I can be happy ^_^. Other than that my thoughts today revolve around the fact that I really want to play the accordeon, that the MacBook keyboard is so much lovelier than any other keyboard and... that... I like this girl's style.

And this version of Cosmic Love. <3

x Have a lovely weekend, you wonderful beings

I think it's time to get to work

Pff. Debería estar haciendo cosas responsables. Como estudiar Tecnología Textil. O haciendo el trabajo de diseño. Pero hoy JURO que me pongo a ello. Intentaré hacer todos los dibujos para Diseño posibles. Y para motivarme, mientras los haga los voy posteando. Así no tengo excusa. MUAHAHAHA.

Me pongo a las 15.00. tengo veinte minutos. Ay. Os dejo con mi daily inspiration.

YA ME VOY! 10 minutos. Waaaaaaaaa.

<3